“elegantly arranged pop music full of sophisticated chord changes and voicings… sinewy vocal melodies, complex arrangements and interestingly layered production choices.” —The Claremont Courier
FOR RELEASE SEPTEMBER 22, 2021
CLAREMONT, California (September 7, 2021) – Not a Moment Too soon releases the lead single, “When the Feces Hit the Fan” on September 22. It’s off the album Wait, What? due out November 12. A banger of a rock piece, it follows a character who has a lot of skeletons in his closet. It was inspired by a line in the Tiger King series where the protagonist says “Everybody’s got a past.”
Not a Moment Too Soon thought it was a great sentence and it made him think of two things. He says, “First, how people’s past often catches up with them when the feces hit the fan. I also used a sentence from another, much older and even more despicable TV series “Cop”: ‘What you gonna do when they come for you?’ Second, I thought of how public personas might try to wiggle out of the consequences with confessions and apologies and how this country often affords them a second chance.” A repeated chord sequence that hesitates in its progression before resolving in a suspended chord captures the shifty ways of the main character. And then there’s the lyric:
You hope this land hates the sin but loves the sinner, that you’ll just waffle, duck and slither, when the feces hit the fan
The album encompasses a pop culture kaleidoscope of topics told with light-hearted wit and power-pop punch. A fast-paced power-pop piece, “In the Zoom Break-Out Room” follows a couple who first met in a Zoom breakout room during the pandemic. There’s the dreamt-up affair with Scarlett Johansson on “Scarlett, We Need to Talk.” “A Manly Man I Am” touches on LGBTQ issues and sexual identity when a man who thinks himself manly and initially frowns upon people with more fluid sexualities finds himself falling in love with a trans person. A parody tribute, “SuperFloyd” is a slow song with chords and keyboards that evoke both Pink Floyd and Supertramp and lyrics that make fun of the drug-infused and free-love lifestyles of the 70s.
Wait, What? Track Listing
- Scarlett, We Need to Talk
- When the Feces Hit the Fan
- A Manly Man I Am
- In the Zoom Break-Out Room
- SuperFloyd
- Long Story Short
- Dating after 50 (feat. Alice Ronin)
- A Sword over Your Head
- Yo Boy!
- Claremont, California
- God, I Need a Drink!
- Virgin No More
About Not a Moment Too Soon
Not a Moment Too Soon is the one-man-band-alter-ego of tenured political science professor and Africanist Pierre Englebert. The musical project began in 2019, with the name a tongue-in-cheek reflection of the late age (he just turned 59) at which he got started. Influences range from 1970s rock to classical to French pop, with power-pop punch and rock-like rhythms taking precedence. Not a Moment Too Soon tells stories with a non-judgmental lighthearted touch on heavy social commentary (race relations, guns, economic vulnerability, sex work). The songs, often funny stories, also convey emotions like love, sorrow, and loss. The man behind Not a Moment Too Soon combines his music project with a productive academic career in political science (African politics, development studies, and quantitative methods). He is a full-time tenured professor with an endowed chair who has published five books and a few dozen articles on African politics. He just published a book on Congolese politics between his last album, Well, and the upcoming album release, Wait, What?.
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Praise For Not a Moment Too Soon
“How to Become a One-Man Band: To understand how Professor of Politics Pierre Englebert became a veritable one-man rock band, step briefly into his musical shoes.”
— By Mark Wood for Pomona College Magazine; March 23, 2021
‘A new musical life’: Pomona professor Pierre Englebert offers humor and personal stories in new album
— By Hava Chishti for The Student Life (TSL); October 15, 2020
